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Ladies,

I've been intending to do a thread like this for years, because as the years pass it seems that eventually almost everyone runs into a situation where the school day seems to be running longer than the parent would like. This often results in bewilderment as to why the day is going too long.

So, here are some things we've found through the years that are wise to consider, because they make a big impact on how long your school day is and also help you know whether your expectations for your day are truly realistic.

1) Have you as the teacher set aside time to teach, or are you instead answering the phone, typing emails, checking message boards, reading facebook, texting, doing laundry, making meals, baking bread, etc.? Your day will go much more smoothly if you focus on teaching as your "job" and direct your attention fully on your students. This one is something I battle all the time, yet when I really am focused everyone is much happier, including me!

2) Are your kiddos well-rested when they begin their day? I mention this because being well-rested greatly affects a successful school start-time for both parent and child. While you can enforce an early start-time to your day, if your kiddos (or you) are exhausted from the night before, they will function sluggishly and sleepily at best. This makes things take so much longer than they should! I must admit that I am a night owl, and I have had to adjust my start time for teaching accordingly. However, my two older sons love to get going earlier than I do. So, they are up at 6:30 and starting their day. Make sure to ponder this important area to gain more focused school time.

3) If you have little ones, have you planned what your little ones will be doing, so they have a daily routine too? Little ones who are left to endlessly interrupt at will can quickly derail the best laid plans! With my little ones, I make sure they are rotated among tasks and places in the home every 30 min. or so. I keep their routine, or order of things, similar each day helping them gain comfort in their day too. If you are not sure what do with your little ones throughout the day, there are terrific threads on our message board for occupying little ones during school time if you search.

4) Do you keep a similar routine each day so that your children's routine becomes second nature? While you don't necessarily have to be exactly on time each day, it is so helpful to keep the same general routine or order of subjects each day. This takes away the question of what a child should do next and minimizes interruptions. I've had to become more scheduled the more years I've taught.

5) Have you written your routine down and provided it for your child, so the child knows what to do in what order each day? This is a necessary step in making a routine function effortlessly.

6) Do you have an efficient set breakfast, lunch, and chore routine? If not, it is wise to ponder these as they will also steal huge amounts of teaching time from your day.

7) Are you making sure in the guides from Preparing on up to follow the suggested level of independence for each box in the guide? If you are having your child do the 'S' (Semi-Independent) or the 'T' (Teacher-Directed) boxes without you, it will add time to your day in either checking later, problems during the work time, or mistakes that aren't caught and need to be fixed. 'S' and 'T' boxes are harder and require more parent help. I compensate for these by sticking close to my kiddos during 'S' boxes, popping in at the beginning or middle to check progress. For the 'T' boxes, I am always present as many of these boxes are discussion based. On the other hand, if you are thinking that the 'I' boxes mean that the child is totally independent and you have no role in the box, this is a misunderstanding. 'I' means the child can complete the box 'Independently", but independent work also needs to be checked. So, I always go over all of the 'I' boxes with my child, discussing what is in the box and checking any work done independently. This is a similar situation to when a classroom teacher assigns homework to be done independently at home. Can you imagine how quickly a child would quit doing homework well, or doing it all, if it were never checked! So it is worth checking the way you are handling each box in your HOD guide in order to be more effective.

Have you trained your children in Preparing on up (and even begun in Bigger) to read right from the HOD guide? Do you allow your children to have the guide in hand as they work? These two steps are crucial for a child to be able to do the 'S' and 'I' boxes in the guide. Working without a guide in hand is very difficult, as the child will be running back to the guide as he/she works, striving to remember a lengthy list of directions. In addition, if you are still needing to read aloud all directions to a child even from the 'S' and 'I' boxes, this will add significant time to your day. So, train your kiddos to read from the guide early and often. It is a skill that pays big dividends not just within HOD, but all throughout life.

9) Are you taking over the assignments from the 'I' boxes, reading aloud material that is meant for the child to read? If so this will definitely add time to your day, as in typical situations kiddos can read to themselves much more quickly than you can read aloud to them. Students also usually retain better when reading to themselves, so be sure to encourage your child to do the 'I' boxes on his/her own (while still checking your child's work in any 'I' boxes). Training a child to read his/her material is a critical step in preparation for the higher levels of reading, analysis, and application to come. It can take time for a child to learn to read purposefully, but almost all kiddos will be asked to use this skill regularly by high school.

10) Are you using HOD's choices for language arts and math? If so, this will help keep your day in balance time-wise with what we schedule in the guide. If you are instead using some of your own selections in these areas, be sure the time spent on each area is in line with the amount of time we spend on these areas in our guide. Otherwise, you will find your school day going much longer than we calculated simply due to your own choices in language arts and math. Language arts and math are the biggest time stealers in the day. They can easily take over the day, leaving little time for the other subjects. So, strive to note how often we schedule writing, dictation, DITHR, and grammar and stick to a similar schedule. Also, be sure math does not overtake your day either.

11) Is your child correctly placed in the right guide? This is such an important question and one that deserves immense amounts of pondering. This is because one of the true gifts of homeschooling is being able to meet our children where they are and teach from there. So, correct placement makes a huge difference on how much time a guide will take each day. This is where wise counsel comes in to charting a good path. Surround yourself with wise counsel on this important decision from those who are familiar with HOD and can help you talk through an accurate placement your children. Pray for the Lord's discernment, and I know He will answer!

12) Have you trained your kiddos in CM style skills? If you hopped into an upper HOD guide, you will have to assume that some of the skills your child is being asked to exhibit were meant to be practiced in previous guides. This means that there will be a learning curve especially with the CM style skills of oral and written narrations, dictation passages, poetry study, reading living books, creating notebooking entries, sketching, and learning in a CM style fashion. Allow time and additional help in your schedule for this, and know that these skills do not develop overnight. So, be patient, and you will eventually see the fruit!

13) Have you checked the message board for the listing of how long each subject is meant to take in each of our guides? This can be a help if your day is too long, because you can jot down the start and end times for each subject in a guide for a day or two and compare to the times on the board to find your time stealers. Here is a link to some suggested times for each guide:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2093&start=135#p74537
Revival to Revolution: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10230&p=74441

14) Are your expectations realistic as to how long your school day should be? If you have multiple kiddos, or if you are in an upper guide, school time daily should and does increase. When you think that our school days in public school were close to 8 hours and there was also a couple of hours of homework at night and on the weekends, what should our expectations be for a homeschool child? Sometimes in our quest for the "shorter day", we forget that school is meant to be a big part of our child's day. It is meant to be very important! It is not just something to "get over with", so we can get on with our day.

I know there are more things to consider, but this list of questions should get you thinking! I know that this list has helped me so much through the years! I pray it will be a help to you too!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thank you so much Carrie for taking the time to post this. I know these are all time traps that we all fall into from time to time.

We've been struggling with our length of day this year in CTC. I knew it would take more time than previous programs and was prepared for that, but somehow we just weren't meeting our schedule. I figured it would take us time to get our routine down so I was prepared for longer days at the beginning. I must say that a little over a week ago (after 7 weeks into CTC), I was thinking that we might have to step down to half-speed because we were not getting the work done in a timely matter, and as supper time approached my dc were still finishing up school work. I had tried having my dc keep a list of how long each subject was taking and I couldn't figure out what was taking so long most of the time. It seemed that each individual task was not that much out of line but yet our day was running long. I had a printed schedule for my dc to follow with blocks of time for each task in the order listed that they should do them, yet that wasn't working.

So last week, I did something differently. I put the day's schedule on the whiteboard (basically each box in the order I thought they should complete them) with times listed beside each one. This really wasn't that different than the schedule I had printed for them except it was bigger and only had one day of activities on it. I had them check off the activities and write the time each one took beside it on the whiteboard. Also we had a special function we wanted to attend in the afternoon on the first day we did this so I told them that everything had to be completed before we could go, so they decided to get up earlier to make sure they finished on time. Lo and behold, they were done with the all of the tasks by lunchtime and pretty much had completed all tasks in less time than I had allotted. After that day, they felt successful and realized that they could get it done when they really focused.

What we found through this was a couple of things. First, my dc need the schedule staring them in the face right now to stay focused. I'm not really happy about that, but hey, they are only 10 years old and sometimes even I, at a bit older than 10 have a difficult time keeping my focus throughout the day. They were losing time moving from one activity to the next because they didn't have the routine down enough. I think as the year progresses, the schedule on the whiteboard won't be necessary, but now it is. This kind of falls into #4 and #5 above because until the routine is down pat, we need a (big) reminder to help them move their day along.

Second, we found that they really need to get most everything completed by lunchtime. They have a more difficult time focusing in the afternoon than they do in the morning. I was actually surprised by that because I am the opposite, but it works better for them to get their work done in the morning when they are fresher. This has made it such that we needed to move their bedtime back a bit so they can be rested, get up and get to work earlier (#2 above).

Third, I found that I have to stay on top of their work. I did have a meeting time each day with them to do some of the teacher boxes and then usually I was checking their work later in the day or evening leaving corrections and problems having to be dealt with until the next morning. Basically this got the next day off to a bad start for them having to correct and file so many things. By letting my teacher duties lapse, I was causing them undue stress at the start of their day and making their days bog down. So I had fallen into trap#1 above by not being as attentive to their school during the day while they were working. Last week not only did I do my teaching/meeting time, but I spent my time after that doing checking and corrections before their day was completed. That way we were able to actually complete the days work in that day. That gave them a better sense of accomplishment and didn't start the next day off on a negative note. It really didn't take any more of my time. I just had to rearrange my time a bit.

Time management is difficult in homeschooling. There are so many time robbers lurking around every corner to steal our time. I think I have fallen into the trap often of thinking that we're homeschooling so we should always be done with school by lunch time and our days shouldn't be near as long as the public schools. There is some truth in that since we don't have to deal with a huge classroom of students and lots of discipline issues in our day (hopefully ). However as our dc get older, there is so much more to learn. Even though I sometimes long for the days of school only being 2 hours long, this really isn't appropriate for the age of my dc. It's to be expected that each year, they will be learning more which means more work and longer days. That's not a bad thing. They are developmentally ready for that. Even though our days were going long at the beginning of this year, my dc weren't complaining about it. When we discussed what we could possibly cut out of the curriculum, we couldn't find anything. Everything had a purpose, and they were enjoying it all. So it became a matter of just figuring out how we could manage our time better. That in itself is a worthy skill to be learned. My dc and I just don't have that skill at the level it needs to be yet. That's ok. We'll continue to work on it. Thanks so much for posting these ideas. I know I'll be coming back to them time and time again.

Thank you for this post. I plan to print it out and put it in my HOD 'teacher' binder as a good reminder.
Anytime I feel it getting hectic or the day going overly long, it'll be right there to help me see where we need to be and remind me what is the most important!

The day thing that I have always done is have 3 hours in the morning set aside for nothing except school. That helps tremendously.
Other things I need to do such as keep my 3yo in the schedule - I keep forgetting

Thanks again!

Mikki

I just wanted to bring this back up because it has been really helpful to me and I've referred to it several times.

I am so glad that this was of some help to you! I know it helps me too!

Blessings,
Carrie

ooo TY! This was a good reminder for me.

I added the Rev to Rev to that "time per box" post from last August now I'm wondering if you have Missions to Modern Marvels available?
Or has Julie not gotten to it yet?

hugs,
Sara

Thanks from me too We're half-way through Bigger at this point and my 7-year-old is trained to do a lot independently already. I hadn't thought to actually let her start to read directly from the guide rather than my explaining it to her. What areas would you suggest this is a good idea for? She already has asked to read the history herself, which I allow, but I still read it to her if she asks. I was thinking the science box, Poetry, history notebooking, timeline, and Bible study. I would still ask her to answer the questions for me, or write them down.

I think this thread needs to go to the FAQ's. I refer to it often and I think it's a very common problem.

This was very helpful!!!!

Thanks Carrie!

Bumping this up ....

Our days just aren't running well at all. Prayerful and considering what can be done. The post by Carrie has some great filters to run the day thru. Maybe these suggestions will be timely for you. .

You are not alone Katrina. My work responsibilities have increased recently and I often feel like my day starts out rough. There is definitely a lot of wisdom and things to ponder for myself as well. Our day are actually going okay but I really need to revamp a schedule. My kids are fairly accommodating and willing to do whatever. That is good. But lately I can't tell if I am coming or going. It has just been a bit rough. I will definitely pray for you that God give you wisdom and set a clear path before you.

Katrina,

I agree that this post is a great trouble-shooting list that I refer to often. As I am looking at your signature, I am thinking that you are running Bigger and Preparing at the same time (along with RTR and LHTH). If this is true, it is a very challenging set-up! I do know families who have done Bigger and Preparing at the same time, but then you have to be ready for l-o-n-g days for both mama and the students, because mama needs to do so much teaching and the students end up with much waiting for their time with mama! This is why we typically shy away from the Bigger/Preparing combination in the same year.

You may wish to start a new thread, so we can brainstorm with you ways to make this more manageable or to tweak placment. Depending on how far into your guides you are, it may be that you are getting toward the tail end of this challenging year and all will be better next year as your Preparing child heads into CTC. If you aren't very far into this combination, we can talk about other options. One obvious option that will help is to read aloud only one set of Storytime books to both your BIgger and Preparing child. Typically, I read aloud the Bigger storytime to both in that situation. This is because the Preparing child really needs to do the Independent History books from the Deluxe Package more than the storytime books to train him for the coming independence of CTC.

We'd love to help if you are willing to share!

Blessings,
Carrie

I'd sure be interested in the brainstorming about these also. I have one in Bigger unit 13 and one in Beyond unit 20. So, it won't be long until there are two in Bigger at different places and then one in Preparing and one in Bigger. There is no way I can combine---I wouldn't want to anyway.

Hi Carrie,

Thanks for chiming in dear lady! I know you are so busy in this season. . .

So, here's the situation. I have NOT used HOD the past couple years due to the combining challenges. My middlers simply do NOT combine well and I've tried other scenarios in the past .... I can only move forward where we are at. It came down to separating my middlers into their own guides and I acquiesced. My daughter is VERY well placed and is thriving with the Bigger work, praise God. We made the decision after much thought and prayer and knowing that Bigger and PHFHG is a tough line-up. I shied from it for a long long time. One of my strategies was to anticipate slowing my daughter down a bit with Bigger because I CAN . My Preparing boy is actually well suited to CTC though I wasn't sure about his placement until we started in with Preparing. We are still fine tuning and so I am hesitant to move him up to CTC just yet though I did go ahead and order the package. He is quite capable of moving up and I think CTC is a MUCH better placement for him though Preparing is such a treat . I want to give him a few more units with Preparing before making the final decision to move. It's possible I'll simply have him use Preparing until we break for summer and then have him start up with CTC this fall .... he'll be 11+ at that time.

The challenges we have are some that I find difficult or perhaps inappropriate to share on a public forum. My oldest child has some real struggles .... he may be gifted and is certainly academically capable but has GREAT difficulty with time/self management. One of my goals is using the HOD guide as a training tool to help him move bit by bit to better self and time management. HOME is highly distracting for him and we are currently brainstorming a way we can put a desk and computer in our room to give him a quiet, nearly distraction free (no Legos in my room ) environment to tackle his independent blocks. This area is one I want to be careful about discussing because I don't want my son to feel embarrassed by anything I'd say about his struggles. The home/sibling environment is particularly difficult for him; the noise, the interruptions, the moving about, the DRAMA, etc. affect him in ways my other children are not affected. He has always been like this and it has caused great strain in our home school. He is prone to feeling like a failure and I want to do all that I am able to to help my son succeed . When I pressure him to work more quickly he folds .... it's best to allow him to take longer to do his work as he produces quality work when I back off. It takes a fair amount of time/energy for me to keep him moving along though .... there is a lot more I could say but I feel that I've said enough (and these are things my son would discuss openly ).

I actually believe a better skill placement is Rev2Rev for him and I'm grappling with that also; in retrospect I wish I'd chosen Rev . He LOVES the HOD work and has done remarkably well with the written narrations which are a new skill. In fact, I'm quite surprised at how quickly he took ownership and really doesn't want my guidance (only my approval ). I think he'd be better placed skill wise by moving up to Rev2Rev but I'm going to leave that consideration for summer as I evaluate his 7th grade year. He has needed a couple of slight modifications to RTR due to his skill level but his non-academic struggles led me to choose RTR for him. A lighter school day is making it possible for us to grasp success in terms of FINISHING and time management.

We have also had some math snafus lately and when we find equilibrium with math things ought to settle down. I think the placement bumps, the sheer number of boxes I must teach, my children's unique struggles (there are many), our particular lifestyle and food choices (I must cook from scratch and our breakfasts take time), dear husband's demanding job, health challenges (so many of us work within this), etc. make for a FULL life and busy days. I simply cannot be home 5 days a week due to needing to keep important appts. out of the home, having music lessons and kids swimming.

Katrina,

Thanks so much for sharing! I completely understand about discretion and applaud your diligence in this area. I, too, guard my kiddos' privacy as much as possible.

With the things you've shared thus far, my general impression is that your daughter in Bigger is well-placed and will just continue on. Your son in Preparing is happy but perhaps ready for more rigor in CTC. I would keep going with Preparing at this point and then re-evaluate over the summer to see if a change needs to be made for the fall when he begins again. To move him toward that direction and see how he does, I would encourage him to be as independent as possible for the remainder of the year in Preparing, meaning he starts seeing the guide as his own and reading directly from it as much as possible for as many subjects as possible. For any boxes in which he is able, he should do his own readings and following directions. During meeting times with you, you can ask any questions in the guide and go over any of his work that he has already practiced in preparation for your meeting time. This will be more of a similar way to what you would do with CTC. See how he handles this greater independence before summer, and you will have a better idea of how he may handle CTC in the fall.

As far as your older son goes, it is a fine line to challenge a child with great intelligence and abilities without stretching him with too much work. If the student is distractible, as I know both my own second and third sons were (in different ways), then time must be allowed to overcome that within the school day (and too heavy of an academic load will find you both frustrated quickly even if the child can handle the rigor - but not the pace). With this in mind, I would be inclined to have your son finish RTR first, and then continue on into Rev2Rev after that. Intelligent kiddos will always be thinking, seeking, pondering, wondering, noticing, and researching topics of interest. They actually need free time to do this, and if we fill their school day too full, they will buckle under the pressure. So, if RTR seemed a bit on the easy side for a distractible child, I would say the grace of less of a load is a blessing. My second oldest son is every bit as intelligent as my oldest, yet I pushed my oldest into harder and harder material just because he could do it (stealing his joy for a few years in the process). My second oldest son, on the other hand thrives in his guides and takes great joy in his school (and he is in the middle age range of the guides even though he could be pushed harder).

My second oldest son became much less distractible when we removed the distractions. So, having him school away from us in a more quiet area actually was of benefit to him. We do not have him school in his own bedroom, as there are too many distractions there. We do let him set up his school the night before, so he can see what is coming the next day. He reads over his plans and organizes his materials and books for the next day, which he calls "setting up." Then, he does his Living Library and one other subject before bed. This helps him feel ahead for the next school day.

There is also a blessing to be reaped in doing the guides in the order that they were written, as the skill progression takes gentler steps that way and the benefits of one guide building upon the skills of the prior guide are readily apparent.

My last suggestion would be to set the timer for math, and then truly quit when time is up. This will make your days go better and make you better aware of how long you are truly spending on math. Math and language arts are the great time stealers in a day and with multiple kiddos even 20 extra minutes per child adds over a hour to your day (just in math)! As far as general math times go, typically for the child in Bigger Hearts, we would consider 20 min. to be a good amount of time for math. For the child in Preparing Hearts, we would consider 25-30 min. to be a good goal. For the child in RTR, we would consider 40 min. to be a good maximum for math.

These suggestions may or may not be helpful, as you know your kiddos far better than me! Sometimes just talking through things like this brings more clarity. Be encouraged that your kiddos are progressing and that while there are times of stress and bumps in the road, you are still going forward. Being about 11 weeks into the guides you begin to hit your stride in some ways, which helps to more clearly see the areas that need attention. Remember to notice the progress too, as it is so easy to only notice the problems!

Blessings,
Carrie